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The Bengals' annual rite of seeking diamonds in the NFL scrap heap added a name Friday. The team signed defensive end Sam Montgomery, a 2013 third-round pick of the Houston Texans who was a two-time first team All-SEC player while at LSU. That team won the SEC title game before losing to Alabama in the national championship.

That's the good news.

The bad news being despite all the talent, Houston saw enough problems to let him go less than two months into the season for what at the time was termed an unspecified violation of team rules. He was cut along with two other players -- Cierre Wood and Willie Jefferson -- for what was reported as smoking marijuana in the team hotel on a road trip to Kansas City.

He was inactive all seven games in Houston.

Oakland took a chance placing Montgomery on their practice squad in December, but he only stuck on the team for three days before being released.

Cincinnati has taken chances on talented players with a history of lacking effort on and off the field before. Names like Derrick Harvey and Aaron Maybin have joined the team only to be cut early in camp. The low risk, high reward flyer comes in hopes of landing the next version of Vontaze Burfict, who rose from an epic fall out of the 2012 draft and and undrafted college free agent to the NFL's leading tackler in 2013.